Mikovits, 5G, and Economic Collapse, Part 9: Remedies by Citizens

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

It would be helpful for dissidents to absorb the fact that the law is prepared to do whatever is needed to fix the problems about which they are so concerned. As dissidents have awareness of many terrible things going on today– not just corruption but extreme wickedness – they might jump to the conclusion that a whole new system is needed, to set things right. No! No!

As this series of articles has argued, the big problem is power-without-accountability. But wasn’t the US Constitution laid out to deal with that? Why, yes it was. So what’s the hang-up? Ignorance of the Constitution, timidity in deploying it, and the fact that the legal institutions tasked with enforcing it are themselves rather hilariously corrupted.

We need to make power accountable. Period. If that’s not being done by the persons who are paid to do it, the responsibility falls to anyone who’s willing. You, for example. You needn’t act nationally, locally is best.

This article presents some well-established legal methods for dealing with wrongdoers, including the “personages” who have enough power to flout the law – those who have cornered the market on impunity, or so they think.

The topics below are: grand juries, the law of self-defense, the law of outlawry, citizen’s arrest, local truth commissions, offers of amnesty, citizens’ review boards and licensing boards, and anti-mutiny clubs.

In Part 8, I presented the law of treason and the law of genocide, as ways to deal with miscreants, but all those require a court’s cooperation. I also mentioned impeachment, but that requires legislative cooperation. I mentioned controlling powerful corporations via the Sherman Anti-trust Act, but that needs executive action. This chapter is about action that does not depend on government.

Let’s face it, government’s refusal to do the right thing is what has brought us here. Still, to make the roundup of remedies complete, I will mention some things that citizens could do with the help of any decent judge, or members of state legislatures. These involve nullifying unconstitutional federal laws, issuing writs of mandamus, and filing qui tam lawsuits or RICO suits.

Grand Juries

Per the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, “No person shall be held to answer for a … crime, except on the presentment or indictment of a grand jury….” As everyone know a regular jury is made up of laypersons. Jurors can ask a judge for information, but no judge or attorney can go into the jury room or guide their decision. It is citizen heaven.

The grand jury also should be citizen heaven. This is the group of 23 that looks at police complaints confidentially, and decides if charging the person with a crime is merited. In colonial days the grand jury had the chore of looking around to find crime or any troubles. It could still do so. Gradually the prosecutors, who work for a state’s attorney general, became the boss but this is unconstitutional (I think). It leads to “insiders” being spared from criminal charge list.

In 2017, in Massachusetts, a committee composed of two sitting judges, three retired judges, five prosecutors, three defense attorneys and one law professor was appointed to have a look at the grand jury system. That was the wrong composition, wasn’t it?

The Law of Self-defense

Clearly, we have forgotten about our right to self-defense. If someone is about to attack you, you can attack back, and you can do that on behalf of another person, too. The High Court of Australia put the common-law principle succinctly in the Zecevic case in 1987:

“The question to be asked … is whether the accused believed upon reasonable grounds that it was necessary in self-defence to do what he did. If he had that belief and there were reasonable grounds for it … then he is entitled to an acquittal.”

A century and a half before that, The Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled, in R v Elliott (1832):

“If the Offender flees and cannot be otherwise apprehended, and is killed, it is in them [you, the killer] Justifiable Homicide, but in all these cases it is essential that a Felony should have been committed, or that a Hue and Cry has been raised.”

The long-forgotten principle of “hue and cry” needs to be resurrected. We should all be hueing and crying about the terrible things being done especially by our covert agencies, given that government officials always refrain from hueing them.

Citizen’s Arrest

Citizen’s arrest is not against law — it is law. Each of the 50 states provides for it. It is how every security guard makes an arrest – as a citizen, as he is not police. You can do it, but only if you have seen a felony committed, or can be sure that one was – or is about to be – committed. Don’t use force, and be sure to tell the person you are arresting him. Then call the police and ask them to come and collect him.

YouTube shows scenes of an occasional successful citizen arrest. It also shows botched ones or ones where the authorities bullied the citizen-cop, or even threw him in the paddy wagon — illegally. No worries, that action breaches the civil rights act.  (See below.)

The Law of Outlawry

To be an outlaw does not mean you have disobeyed the law. That makes you an offender, or once tried, a convict. The term outlaw means one whom the law can’t get ahold of. Maybe she is just an excellent escape artist. Maybe the town doesn’t have enough resources for police. Then it is an obligation on all to catch her, if possible. To harbor her or feed her makes you a criminal.

This law of outlawry came to America with the common law of England. A state may repeal it or modify it by passing a statute.  If a state has not done so, the law of outlawry is in force.

A Word about Common Law and Maxims

The common law of England was not made of legislation but was the body of ideas rendered in court cases. It is often used in our day as the basis for a judge’s ruling. It gave rise to general ideas such as the need for intention to be one of the elements of a crime, or the rule that a wife cannot (usually) be a witness in her husband’s defense.

There are more than a hundred profound maxims of law. A judge can refer to one, such as:

Gross negligence is held equivalent to intentional wrong.
The law regards the course of nature.
Let the punishment be proportionate to the crime.
Every ratification has a retrospective effect
He who cannot be known from himself can be known from his associates. (This is important in a RICO case.)
That which necessity compels, she excuses.

Local Truth Commissions

Maybe you can’t do this in China, but you can sure do it stateside.  You can use your front lawn, your kitchen, or a rented room in the town library or university library (either of which has a community obligation to rent that room to you) and ask persons to come to you with information.

There were famous Truth Commissions, in the 1990s in South Africa and El Salvador. Those two had some sort of official mandate but your mandate can come from your neighbors or colleagues.  The purpose of it is to allow person who want to confess, to confess — or persons who want to snitch, to snitch.

Naturally it is better if the proper (well-paid) institution does that job, but we can see that such things are not working today.  Maybe your effort, however humble, can be a way of demonstrating that the proper institutions are AWOL. I advise that your group not publicize its files indiscreetly and that you make no (impossible) promises of justice.

Offers of Amnesty

Your Truth Commission will not have the very handy powers that a court has – to demand that so-and-so show up, that such-and-such material be delivered (by subpoena necessary). And you would not be likely to have resources for a witness protection gig.

Still, we are not all cowed, are we? We can take some steps.  I recommend that you make a very tentative offer of amnesty to persons whose confession you take. It is reasonable to think that if all goes well, you will later be able to secure a real amnesty on his behalf.

Citizens’ Review Boards

There exist many citizens’ review boards and they have official standing. This is appropriate.  They are outsiders to government and can be critical.  The relevant maxim — against insider house-cleaning — is: Nemo iudex in causa sua. – you can’t be the judge in your own case.

(Why do we even bother to pay ‘Inspectors General, when they never (that I know of) take the crims to task?)

In Kansas there are five Citizen Review Boards that oversee decisions by the Child Protection Service – as well they might! I quote their pamphlet:

“Volunteers meet as a group once a month and interview families and service providers and then deliberate in private before sharing their recommendations orally with the people in attendance. The presiding judge can use the CRB recommendations to make his/her own court orders.”

Licencing Boards

Some boards that investigate ethical breaches by licensed professionals (e.g., doctors, lawyers, accountants) already have laypersons on them. So here let me suggest not that you form one, but that you send in your complaints.  By law, they must be taken seriously. The professional person does not want to be disbarred, suspended, or even mildly reprimanded.

When did you last write to a licensing board about a player in the horrible games that you are aware of?

Anti-Mutiny Clubs

It is said that the amount of fragging that goes on in the US military is much greater than is admitted to – soldiers kill their officers. I am not condoning either fragging or mutiny. Rather I make the suggestion that soldiers, sailors, and airmen form anti-mutiny clubs.

The point is to have a safety valve for discussing illegal orders. The personnel would at least be able to say if they think they are at risk of committing a war crime or of following orders that are unconstitutional.

As for actual mutiny, I believe that if participants in the Vietnam War knew what we now know about that war, they would have done right to the United States by mutinying.

Nullification

That’s the end of today’s article’s focus on ways of dealing informally to insinuate your presence in the Forum. Now let’s have a brief reminder of remedies available where the government institutions have not been totally corrupted, and where you can demand assistance.

Nullification, which is hardly ever used, us a way for a state to reject a federal statute that it deems unconstitutional.  The prime examples, occurring early in the life of the Great Republic, were the Virginia Resolution and the Kentucky Resolution that made short shrift of the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798.

Today, a group aptly called The Tenth Amendment Center aims “to rein in overreaching power and increase liberty.”

The Center puts out a Nullification Handbook for your use. Some of its concerns are the Common Core curriculum in schools, and NDAA indefinite detention. (The gall of it!)

NDAA is the biannual National Defense Appropriations Act, into which Congresspersons sneak all sorts of tricks.

Note: the word nullification also relates to jury nullification. One way a community can say No to unwanted legislation is for members, when on jury duty, to render verdicts in trials that side with the defendant.

Writ of Mandamus

A writ of mandamus (Latin for “we order) is a court order to a government official to do his duty. It is very under-used. I think part of the reason many excellent provisions of the law go begging is that lawyers are motivated to help clients whose case will result in a win from which the attorney fee can be deducted.

Qui Tam Lawsuits

There is a pleasant way for a lawyer to get paid for helping an activist fight the government.  If the citizen sees the taxpayer being ripped off – say by a defense contractor – she can file a suit under the federal False Claims Act (some states have these Acts, too).

It is called a qui tam suit, based on the qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, meaning “[he] who sues in this matter for the king.” You will be called the “relator” in the case. You may receive as much as 25% of the amount of the fine paid by the guilty party.

RICO Lawsuits

RICO is short for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, of 1970, drafted by Professor GR Blakey of Notre Dame University Law School. (Anyone can draft a law and submit them to the state or federal legislature.)

This law is invaluable when a racket is taking place. The accused has to have participated in two crimes (from a set list of crimes) within a period of ten years. I recently filed a civil RICO suit, Maxwell v Federal Bureau of Investigation, et al. It cost me only $400 in Federal District Court as a pro se litigant.

I did not win, and you may not win, but if you don’t try you definitely won’t win.

Civil Rights Law

The United States has an amazing federal law to protect you from violation of your civil rights. It can be used for either lawsuits or prosecutions (such as for police brutality). It is codified at 18 USC 242:

“Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State … the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;

“and if bodily injury results … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results … shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.”